Ed Sheeran Transforms Into a Boxer in Love for "Shape of You" Music Video

The British crooner got in the boxing ring for his newest track

By Samantha Schnurr Jan 30, 2017 4:22 PMTags
Ed Sheeran, Shape of You Music VideoYouTube

All that's missing from this new music video is a cameo from Rocky Balboa. 

In honor of his new track, "Shape of You," Ed Sheeran strapped on the boxing gloves and stepped into the ring for a music video set in the world of a fighter. Sheeran stars as a dedicated athlete training in the gym. In between jabs, he crosses paths with a fellow boxer and the two make goo-goo eyes at each other. 

Fast forward through scenes of the two playfully sparring on the street and canoodling over fried chicken at a diner and they're making out in the back of a taxi. However, the gooey feelings don't last long as Sheeran's love interest soon leaves him and, suddenly scorned, Sheeran lets his frustration out at the gym (tire-flipping included!) as he prepares for an upcoming match. 

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Turns out, he's fighting a sumo wrestler and ultimately ends up on the floor. As the grand finale, Sheeran's lady returns, flying into the ring with a karate kick in the air as the scene cuts to black. 

The video, starring Jennie Pegouskie and retired sumo wrestler Yamamotoyama Ryūta, was directed by Jason Koenig, the man also behind Macklemore and Ryan Lewis' "Can't Hold Us" visual. 

While the track was one of the first singles from Sheeran's upcoming third studio album to hit the airwaves, it almost went to another famous singer.

"['Shape of You'] is actually a really random one because I went in to write songs for other people with a guy called Steve Mac and Johnny McDaid, and we were writing this song and I was like, 'this would really work for Rihanna,'" he said during an interview on the BBC Radio 1 Breakfast Show. "And then I started singing lyrics like 'putting Van The Man on the jukebox' and I was like, 'well, she's not really going to sing that, is she?' And then we sort of decided halfway through that we were just going to make it for me."

"This was the last song that was finished, and I just didn't put two and two together that this was even going to be on the album," he added. "I just kind of wrote it and was like 'oh, that was fun.'"